Elizabeth Sierra, a candidate for the Disability Cultural Center’s open director position, presented on what disability culture is and how she would lead the DCC at Bird Library on Thursday.

Sierra, a private psychotherapist from Oregon, is the third and final candidate to present at Bird Library this week. Candidates Stephanie Woodward and Kathy O’Connell gave presentations on Wednesday and Tuesday, respectively.

“The director must facilitate the artistic, written, verbal and academic missions of students,” Sierra said.

Sierra said she supported and would keep many of former DCC Director Diane Wiener’s initiatives, including a “Cripping” the Comic Con symposium and sports activities.

Programs she would add to the DCC would include panel discussions, round-tables, research assistantships and a student mentoring program, Sierra said.

She also said she wanted to add programs that would “make the tent larger” and expand outreach to people with “invisible disabilities” — including people suffering from substance abuse and mental health disorders.

“We are in the midst of a global mental health and addiction crisis. We identify it, (but) we don’t talk about it,” she said. “So I think that it starts at home. It starts here. Helping people to feel like they do have a voice in disability culture even if they might not realize it.”

Sierra said she envisioned the production of a student-run, nationally distributed podcast featuring scholars, activists and performers sharing their “disability-shaped perspectives.”

Many of the events that Sierra proposed for the DCC would be student-run. She said the addition of a student advisory panel, built from representatives of SU’s four cultural centers, would shape her initiatives.

Sierra said this would be part of her plan to facilitate “self-determination” by students. Her job would mainly be to support students in their efforts to make change, she said.

The director would need to be familiar with how the university is structured, or what happens at SU “behind the curtain,” Sierra said. She said she would help students understand the structure of the university and then connect them to people who know how to make change.

She added that the best activists are acquainted with the systems that they want to change.

“It’s not about me doing it for you,” she said. “Self-determination is huge. Frankly, I don’t think you need me to do that for. What students do need is a little bit of a peep behind that curtain.’”

Throughout her presentation, Sierra — who lives with vitiligo universalis, a condition that makes patches of skin lose their original color — presented a slideshow to the audience with several models who also live with vitiligo.

“I decided, you know what, I’m gonna wear short sleeves, I don’t care. I’m gonna let my hair be the color that it is,” she said. “But I wouldn’t fault anyone for whichever choice they make.”

Published on February 22, 2019 at 5:38 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326